


Until the dusk of death and then beyond

by LadySpearWife



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Brother-Brother Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Death, Deathfic, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Halls of Mandos, Mother-Son Relationship, Politics, Psychological Trauma, The Maiar - Freeform, The Valar, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 23:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14820965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySpearWife/pseuds/LadySpearWife
Summary: Fingolfin dies.It's legendary, it's madness, it's greatness. No one sings of it, but no one forgets it.Fingolfin goes to the Halls of Mandos.This tale, however, is too quiet to make songs of.





	1. We weren't the first to fall

**Author's Note:**

> thats me screaming all my love for fingolfin because damnit i love this reckless, mad elf  
> also i need good interactions with the valar and mandos had a bad rep so here i am, being devil's advocate or whatever

The Halls of Mandos were _almost_ what Nolofinwë expected them to be.

There was a time where he didn’t care for death, there was a time where no one cared for death. Life in Aman, far from the grim places without light and endless blessings, meant never caring for tomorrow, because tomorrow would be there anyway, sure as the mingling of the Trees and the power of the Valar. Lord Námo was naught but an eerie, imperious presence, impossible to truly like or dislike, untouchable and a little uninterested in the most mundane aspects of their existences.

And then, in an instant, it began to matter, though maybe not exactly. Nolofinwë was a prince, dancing around the crown and the throne and the power, and he needed to understand his opponents. The only one who offered a true fight was Fëanáro, and Fëanáro was death-driven, obsessed with his mother’s legacy. Yet, it was a convenient piece, not a card to win the round, and he still didn’t care enough.

The sword pointed at his throat changed everything.

Death had never been so painfully, desperately, terrifyingly real before. His elder brother could do it and, if he did, it’d be without hesitation, without remorse, without a single moment of guilt. Any wrong movement, any reckless decision, was the end, and Fëanáro, with his cruel smirk and scorching gray eyes, knew it. Nolofinwë stared the blade, frozen because the only other option would be running, covering, screaming, flinching. Later, this would be defiance, confidence, bravery, but the truth was: heart chilling, bone-deep, nearly bloodstained and utter terror.

He became obsessed with death too. The ones who had come back to life would say _“my prince, it’s unthinkable that your half brother would dare to do so again,”_ but that wasn’t the point, and thus Nolofinwë insisted and insisted and insisted, desperate to get his answers. They’d tell about Mandos the, gray, dull, tranquil Mandos with its eternal pull towards memories. He drowned in the tales of morbid Maiar hovering around and their ghostly sounds echoing, of remembering and thinking and remembering again, of growing used to be only half real.

Lord Námo did what he always did: watched with some nameless emotion humming around him. Arafinwë, however, was a thousand times more frantic, more rash, more caring. _“Promise me you won’t be reckless, proud and stupid, brother, promise me you will pick your battles with caution,”_ he used to say, genuine fear gnawing at his usually expressionless face. Nolofinwë didn’t listen, never did, but, riding towards his death, he could think how amusing and terrifying it was to have two seers knowing about it.

There were enough tales, songs and chronicles enough of what happened after, more than enough, perhaps. Melkor and Ungoliant devouring their only light, a poisoned darkness chocking them, his father’s crushed corpse – how ironic: he was never the most like his father among Finwë’s children, he died the same way, he was only one to follow his father’s steps –, bodies fallen on the sand and bodies floating on the furious ocean, a fire burning at the horizon, the endless Ice.

Formenos may have been the pitiless, gory murder of both his sire and his already tarnished innocence, and Alqualondë, pure and brutal massacre that he couldn’t avoid or stop, shame, hatred and misery boiling in throat every time the pale harbor was mentioned. Both were death-marked memories, dark and horrible in the deepest corners of his mind, though meaningless when compared to the Helcaraxë, to the march.

The sword at his throat was the first time death was real for Nolofinwë, but it didn’t become an unescapable reality until the Grinding Ice. He knew the names of the ones who drowned, who froze, who vanished, who faded, he knew all of them until he didn’t. There too many dead faces and cold corpses left behind to remember.

Beleriand wasn’t any better, and why did he even think it would be?

There were battles, too many battles, and his name was shouted in every one of them, a war cry, an honor, a curse. The enormous ones that left nothing but ruins behind and the small ones that never truly rested, even during the Siege. Nolofinwë sent soldiers and civilians alike to die every day, orders to massacre the orcs or bring trolls down. He didn’t know their names or their faces, never met them, but they fought nonetheless. Their blood was his hands, thick and doomed, just like his family.

His brother’s sons didn’t retreat when the fires began. It was Nolofinwë’s order.

And then he died in the most spectacular fashion one could imagine, died and came to the Halls that were almost what he expected from the tales.

Except they were cold, and he couldn’t breathe.


	2. I'll be your sword, not shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who could imagine the Ainur knew fear?

The Maiar mostly left Nolofinwë alone.

He could wander as much as he desired through the gray halls, perhaps in places where no living soul should be, and none of them would approach. Most of times, it was almost impossible to find an Ainu. The stories waxed so poetically about how their ghostly presences and eerie songs filled even the hearts sunk in dark despair with the warmest hope, but Nolofinwë’s own staying in Mandos was only a heavy silence, measuring time with tireless steps and thinking.

He could think a lot being so lonely, being so lost, being so devoid of the faintest illusion of life. Think about Helcaraxë and Lammoth and Losgar, about his son’s dying breathes in his trembling arms, the short letter about his daughter’s sudden death, the flames taking all of them in a heartbeat, his failures as a ruler. The Halls may be serene for others, but for Nolofinwë, they were only the biting cold of the Ice, the feeling of the Enemy’s foot at his throat and thoughts as deafening as war drums.

It was bitterly amusing and self-explanatory that, even if trumpets and clarions won wars, his wouldn’t have been victorious against Angband.

Nolofinwë’s only moments of peace – and what peace even was for a child of Finwë with an inferno in his veins? – were remembering that Findecáno and Aracáno had left Mandos already, centuries before. He could just faintly recall the way his eldest used to laugh and how he pretended to be offended when his youngest outgrew him, but the memory of love, solid and ardent in the middle of the permanent snowstorm his existence had become, refused to fade the slightest.

Besides it, however, he probably was the loneliest spirit in the Halls, roaming without a destination through the gray rooms until it was impossible what exactly life had been before this. The glimmering tapestries were his only companions, and the bright reds of them made him understand why Lady Vairë was always so sad. There was so much red in the endless, starved wars. The Battle of the Sudden Fire specifically shimmered in gold and orange as well, the fires roaring in his mind even now.

The Weaver herself was the only one who accepted Nolofinwë’s still chained to the horrible past company, welcoming him in empty galleries filled by half-finished works and smiling, if not a little lugubriously, at his wonder with the dancing, bright images. Her Maiar, however, didn’t share her inclination to be seen, and not even those of Nienna’s merciful folk visited him. He could’ve been angry or desolate, perhaps even despairing at such indifference, but it seemed natural.

Except it wasn’t, except all those who returned talked about being comforted by kind, singing Ainur and their haunting presences. He’d know: he’d begged for such conversation until everyone in Aman knew the prince was somewhat obsessed with death and colorless, dull Mandos. Nolofinwë wasn’t sure if his own heart believed this was deserved for every tragedy he commanded. Maybe it was, who could say?

It wasn’t until Vairë’s muttered _“_ you _must forgive_ them, Aracáno, they’re only afraid” when he apologized, voice rasped and breathless, but everything about him seemed to be rasped breathless now, for sending her weavers into a frozen, unnatural silence and restlessness that he understood. Wasn’t Nolofinwë the Defiant? The Thrice-Unbeaten? A son of Finwë? The Enemy’s dark, boiling blood would be forever staining his hands, no matter how long it’d been. He was marked as dangerous, as powerful, as a threat. The Maiar were afraid of him, of his madness, of his battle.

If Nolofinwë hadn’t been living in the moment where his neck was crushed by a foot, in the white expansions of the Grinding Ice, in the despondent failure as he understood what being divine and sending people to die meant, he’d have laughed so horrifyingly. He didn’t. Instead, he found himself itching because of that simple _Aracáno_.

This one was a name for softness and a life lost long ago, for the nights being lulled to sleep by his mother, for the warm happiness every time his father kissed his brow, for Findis’ imperious demands for company in her artistic escapades, for Lalwen while she was begging him to not say he found her in a shady bar twice in the week, for Arafinwë asking for a story after his gory visions. Not for whispering he was feared by the Ainur, not for the cold realization his reckless death had become a part of him.

 _Nolofinwë_ would have been better to address the prince, the politician, the regent, the rebel, the king, the martyr, the mad, the suicidal. It was a name drenched in what he chose to show: the lies and the ambition and the bravery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fingolfin's my boi and i'll protect him even though he doesn't need it.  
> also, who would want to mess with the guy who wounded fucking morgoth the most powerful ainur ever?


	3. may we bathe in the ashes of our unholy glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nolofinwë is a hero, but not perfect, and sometimes he can see how unfair everything is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at me returning with a slightly dark fingolfin who's angry, resentful and arrogant. there must be a why for him staying at the halls after all. that's my author's warning.  
> i cant believe i finally wrote this! in your face writer's block!

Nolofinwë was a hero, and that was probably the most haunting part of his tale.

For who could become a champion in History with hands drenched in innocent blood and face grim before desperate tears of frantic citizens? Who could bear the title of _idol_ after ten thousand mistakes that weighted as much as his own scorching sadness and meaningless legacy? It was flattering to be put among the highest and the bravest of the Quendi, and nonetheless the bitter taste of unfairness dulled everything else.

The people whom he condemned to fates worse than death shouldn’t shoulder such thoughtless scorn to their suffering. Nolofinwë could be their personal doomsman from all he knew and saw. They didn’t deserve this mockery.

And yet, what else would he be if not a hero?

He could still feel the familiar weight of Ringil in his hand and his neck hurt as if a crow rested upon his brow. Beleriand the Drowned had become a matter of melancholic music and the Enemy, a dark secret to be forgotten, and Nolofinwë would never not be a conqueror, a martyr, a leader and a builder. Even the Halls and its magnetic pull towards low-spirited memories were unable to erase the part of him that was insanely proud of the realms built in exile and of his own courageous folly.

So, it was haunting and unfair and _true_ , and Nolofinwë wasn’t exceptional at being humble and that was carved into his bones long ago.

They didn’t sing of his greatest and most stupid deed or of his midnight dark shadows, but they sang of all the rest, and he could manage to admit that a part of him had always hungered to be the one that everyone praised, admired and loved. There was something ugly in his entire _House_ that needed every part of the songs, tales and legends to be about them, and it was utterly futile and cruel to point where this had headed.

Nolofinwë was a hero covered in injustice, blood and splendor. Mandos couldn’t dull this twisted sense of greatness, and he had never been good at humbling himself or pardoning. The status of legendary man made him arrogant and overconfident at his own righteousness, and how could any person from his family compete against it? No one was able to take his pedestal from beneath his feet. Not even Fëanáro or the fact he shouldn’t have ridden to face the most magnificent suicide one could imagine.

Everybody wanted to rule the world in the end of the day.

He was lonely and tired and yearned desperately to live again, but there were things Nolofinwë wasn’t prepared to accept, reconsider or pardon. Thus, as stubborn as always, he wandered through gray halls without a true destiny, ignored how disregarded he was by the terrified Ainur, and never thought too much about the mistakes he was proud of. There were many of those, and many more that hurt too much to even remember. It wasn’t for nothing he was still bodiless.

They talked much about Fëanáro’s blinding madness and obsessions, about Findis’ hunger for something other than the status of daughter, about Lalwen’s desperate desire to live in a world without rules, about Arafinwë’s ruthlessness and mercilessness with his tongue. Nolofinwë had the talent to act and a scenario where he could become the martyrized victim: his flaws had been twisted into gold and kingship.

The first catch was that Nolofinwë did heroic choices, and people were hesitant in admitting they admired flawed, not pristine idols, afraid their own moralities would be sullied if they did so. There were only the perfect loved ones, covered in laurels and unshakeable devotion, and the horrible hated ones, forever disgraced and scorned in History’s tongue. The second catch was that the past was told by his side.

“You’re a hero,” Lord Námo had said one time, kinglier in his tranquil halls than Manwë was in every corner of Aman, and for this he’d been seething with anger and resentment, understanding naught but an afterthought, “but a hero of what exactly?”

“Of ashes and broken lives, mostly,” he had spat back viciously. This was his tragedy, a weight that no Vala, however powerful, would ever understand.

There was a time where Nolofinwë didn’t like or dislike the Doomsman, thought his reputation was unfairly given, maintained a respectful curiosity about him. That was before his shoulders bent and broke beneath a damned condemnation for sins he didn’t commit, before his free will to remain or leave was stripped, before the Valar declared themselves royalty among the Quendi regardless of the promises they would never. He was fire, wrath, memories and stubbornness now, this half-life making these rawer.

Nolofinwë had never been good at forgiving or forgetting after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somebody take fingolfin from me before i make something really sad with him


	4. let our sons and daughters play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nolofinwë remembers his mother's despair the best.

 Nolofinwë remembered his mother’s despair better than anything else.

It was a moment that his mind refused to forget, regardless of how much was out of his reach. How her mouth quivered and then became a thin, hopeless line. How her usually cold blue eyes were lit with anger and fear. How her expression was twisted and tight. The light of the lamps was too weak to make Indis’ famous hair glimmer as gold, instead coloring her as a walking corpse or a matron from the frightening tales. Blood and dirt stained the pale, fluttering dress she wore. She was a ghost.

Such irony: among them both, he was only one who became a spirit, wandering through Mandos with silent screams and translucent hands. Queen Indis outlived two children, almost all her grandchildren, the greatest works of the Valar and a continent.

Nonetheless, in that moment, his mother was wraithlike, holding his face with fingers tinged by the poisoned nectar, blabbing in utter anguish. Tears, angry and terrified, trickled down her dreadful face. Uncle Ingwë loomed around the door, pleading with his eyes to not follow the rebellion that was springing from ruined Formenos and so dark Tirion. He was just a distant figure in the memory, faceless and blurry in the gloom. Nolofinwë could still recall how she’d sobbed when he told her he was going.

The Halls didn’t erase the pain that flooded him, didn’t make it justifiable by the slightest. It hurt hopelessly, reminding him again and again and again that his last moment with his mother was her reaching for his cloak, pleading that he stayed in the safety. Sometimes, he could see Indis’ face on the dim light of Mandos. She was crying, always crying and burying her head in her shaky hands.

_“Aracáno, please don’t follow Fëanáro! Please, please, please, please! You can’t die! I’ll not stand seeing any of my children vanishing! It’s madness, and you know!”_

Nolofinwë kissed her brow and left, giving a sad last salute to his uncle before departing, her cries echoing at his trails. He’d said _“we’ll be great, mother, legendary even”_ without knowing that the price of making History was blood. He shouldn’t have doubted that she knew better about this kind of greatness as well. Her eyes were as blue and difficult to read as the Grinding Ice, and Nolofinwë would give everything to have learned how expensive becoming a legend was there instead.

Lady Vairë had asked, only once, if he regretted it, leaving Indis and shelter behind and pursuing a sure death. She was weaving again, with her silver-haired silent maiden as a dreadful companion. He smiled just as unforgiving and sharp as the edge of a sword, steeled his posture and said no. He would never give this much to an Ainu, regardless of how kind and willing to talk said Valië was. It went again the careful and slicky fury he built for himself. Mandos wouldn’t tame his horrible rage.

His own mother said taught her children how to thunder and seethe. She took his still small hands on hers and told Nolofinwë to never back down when there was an injustice against him. The teaching was carved into his spine. He wondered if, in the darkness of her private chambers, she regretted doing so. The fire and the wrath whispered to the line she birthed doomed them all. Wrath and a desire to live outside the glittering chains moved their bones to the Kinslaying and through the Ice.

Maybe his mother despaired until people simply grew tired of hearing, seeing, living, existing. Nolofinwë had discovered she was exquisite at worrying and quailing because this was what they trained her in. Perhaps him most of all, with his undying desire for the crown that was always a little out of his reach. The day it finally came was tinged in blood, betrayal, death and chaos. It wasn’t a fate she desired for a child of hers.

Indis the Fair, Vanyarin Queen of the Noldor before the Exile, a woman so beautiful and regal that many trembled in her presence, went down on her knees, cling to his mantle and pleaded until her words became meaningless wails. It was sight that would never fade from his mind. Did it make him pitiless? Did it make him a monster for bending and breaking such a strong soul? Nolofinwë wished these thoughts never came, but he had time, loneliness and too many memories.

The Halls were, in this point, unforgiving, an inexorable force driving him towards the sea of reminiscences he was so desperate to avoid. Was it Mandos’ cruelty that made him remember his mother the best when she was a destroyed, pitiable, hopeless thing? Couldn’t he be free from her tear-filled, blue eyes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my baby nolo deserves better than me being cruel af but i regret only that not so little hiatus of mine  
> please come scream about indis, nolo and my grammar mistakes at the comments i promise i dont bite


	5. the stupid, the proud and the king

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nolofinwë could sing an ode of despair to his family if it'd not been done before. so he settles on being wrong, time and time again.

Once, Nolofinwë remembered, if just barely so, sharp and golden Artanis had called him horrible. The look in her eyes didn’t lie, however: she wanted to say _ruthlessly efficient_ but couldn’t bend her pristine morality that much. She’d been fresh and a bit naïve back then, power-hungry in a way it was impossible to admit and not yet ready for it. His father was still sheltering his grandchildren from the worm-mouthed politics.

For some reason or another, it stuck with him, the resentful admiration and the blatant criticism. Nolofinwë wasn’t guilty on any accounts at time, untouchable little king among a burning sky, their iron-willed monster, the man many would kiss the feet and feel unashamed. The reality of always having to keep a morale as brittle as ice high had turned him into a gaunt thing, starving for more than food, beautiful too watch from _afar_. Artanis, frozen beneath the thick furs, didn’t care, or maybe didn’t realize.

He’d laughed, not wincing as the sound disappeared in the clash against the winds. It wasn’t the Helcaraxë that made him learn cruelty, ruthless, severity; these he carried proudly since birth. If being horrible, beastlike, could save them from dying, Nolofinwë would wash his own hands in blood and smile through it; drink if it was requited. A _horrible martyr_ Artanis had added, muffling a laugh of her own, eyes knowing and some centuries too old for her. She’d been his little niece at the time.

Nonetheless, being in the Halls taught him more than her glimmering judgment could ever hope. First, she’d forgotten to add _unapologetic_ to the list, because ages had passed through and Nolofinwë was yet to bend, to accept his mistakes and let it all go away. Second, it was a long way up, and a longer way down. Particularly for his family

They were all horrible, truth be told. His father’s line was cursed with the mad desire to swallow the world when it was burning and damn the consequences; hunger bigger than sense. It was true for the children who balanced themselves at sword’s edge and never faltered but were full of scars. For the grandchildren who died, died, died and kept dying, one by one until they were matter of legend. For the other descendants who learned grief and hatred from families missing pieces and missing sanity.

Nolofinwë could sing them an ode about despair, but Macalaurë had already done it.

Instead, he waited, wandered, remembered much and refused to remember many others. He was the unchanging hopeless cause, same awe-inspiring kingly shoulders and kingly arrogance that promised only a bit of pain and way more than just a bit of heartbreak. This was the game he’d been taught to play, though, bloody and unfair as it was. The Valar could shatter on his pride and it’d not buckle. Nolofinwë was patient, sly and slicky as an eel, and while he knew it was impossible to tire truly timeless beings, there weren’t rules in this world to stop him from trying.

The righteous anger helped to steal his words and harden his bitterness. He was more angry than tired, more angry than miserable, more angry than regretful, more angry than sane. All the time, fire boiled beneath his skin, merciless and restless, moving his persistent not-body through a hazy not-world. Maybe, and just maybe, Fëanáro was the same, bearing his spiteful resentment like a war declaration and not belonging to a reality three times too small for him, but it’d been literal ages since Nolofinwë decided to not care about his half-brother or the blood they almost shed in their past.

He had no need of an inexistent and taunting shadow, or of the spun tale of such a poor, scorned child becoming true. Convenient it might’ve been, but certainly not pleasant at all, because his life is tainted by arrogance. Whatever the songs said and regardless of the poets’ beautifully woven words, Nolofinwë was what he was: victorious. Fëanáro, the rebel, monstrous and unsuccessful, couldn’t have that wherever they’d cast him.

Some ages from now, if you go to Alqualondë’s ruined harbor, the one people say it’s haunted and that was never repaired after the bloodshed, four or five days after the First Kinslaying’s anniversary, you’ll find Nolofinwë Aracáno, most reckless of the Noldorin kings and one among the legendary characters, staring at the sea with sharp, rapt, scorching eyes. He’ll, of course, laugh, offer you an overly courteous hand and grin broadly. Nonetheless, there won’t be a single word about his own gory fairytale.

You might ask the reason. You might want to try and discover these midnight-dark secrets. Everyone will do in time. It’s always like that.

“It’s too soft for that in this side of the sea,” he’ll say, grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nolo is my bb boy and kinda an asshole here but that's not the point, he likes being right but knows he was wrong far too often and yet cant fucking admit it.  
> OH MY GOD I FINALLY FINISHED THIS AFTER PROCRASTINATING FOR AGES!!!  
> many mentions of finwe i think, and oh look finally some feanor


End file.
